‘Rejoice, my children. For today we battle beneath the Changer’s Eye! Let your ambitions shine proudly under his eternal gaze! Behold the fate of those who in their arrogance fight against His great scheme. Though they claim themselves master over the etherium, today we will prove they are naught but dust in their shells. Go forth, my Shades, and conquer!‘
Hathos shuddered as he unleashed the spell. Since the Shadowcursed had sent the rest of the warband against the Thousans Sons, Hathos had spent the entire battle casting his magic. Spell after spell he spent augmenting his fellow renegades as well as hurling black, shadowy bolts of death at the enemy. Even between incantations Hathos was forced to chant countercurses and negate the worst of what the Thousand Sons were throwing back at them. Briefly using the short moment after the completion of his spell to savour the cracking noise of several rubricae breaking open in the distance, Hathos drew a large breath of misty webway air into his superhuman lungs.
He was suprised, really. The ease by which the spells came and by which the energies were summoned was astounding in itself. Given that they were battling so many other warp users and in the company of two daemon princes, Hathos would’ve expected to feel some sort of resistance. As a true devotee, Hathos reasoned that it must surely be the sign of his God’s presence that the influence of the warp came so strongly in this alien dimension.
Torn from his musings by a bolter shell encased in warpflames detonating beside his location, the sorcerer decided to keep moving and start working on his next enchantment.
‘Neratafata gormanoramos!‘ he exclaimed, grasping the final energies of his prescience inducing incantation into his power-armoured fist. Just before he could unleash his latest sorcery however, Hathos was temporarily blinded and rocked backwards by a terrible flare. Regaining his composure, the renegade slowly waited for his sight to recalibrate itself. Seeing the battlefield before him once more, Hathos was reminded on how bad things were going. It seemed to be going well when the Shadowcursed took down the enemy general, but once the two giant statues started firing in earnest, everything quickly went sour for the renegades.
The Shadowcursed’s energy seemed to have disapeared from the field and now even Hubrecht Payll and his terminator guard were nowhere to be seen. It all seemed due to this new daemonic entity that wielded some sort of baleful lightsource.
‘A burning sword?’ Kretchar, one of the traitor astartes firing his bolter by Hathor’s side, openly asked. ‘Never seen one do that before’.
‘Count yourself lucky. I’ve heard of only one sword lately that shines so.’ Hathor spoke ominously from behind the firing line. ‘Thankfully for us, it is impossible that that particular sword resides in the hands of such a creature. You’re all under the effect of a blinding charm.’ Hathor lied. ‘Shake it off and focus fire!’
Gasping and panting, Hathos leapt ungraciously behind the cover of a building wall. Whichever ancient civilisation built these ruins had his thanks. Each and every renegade of the Shades of Tranquil was either destroyed, incapacitated or fleeing. Even though he was likely the last remaining warrior on the field, Hathos was not about to give up yet. All the spells, twists and turns that occured during this battle seemed to have pleased his patron deity and Hathos himself had never felt more chosen than when he personally banished the hooded daemon.
Visible as a bright blue nebula that pierced the alien mists, the energy of Tzeentch was permeating this battlefield, just waiting to be reaped. Hathos could not resist at least an attempt to harness that power for himself. He began to envision the ritual he would need to perform and the circles and diagrams he would need to prepare.
A large crack sounded above him as a piece of rockrete fell down loudly beside the sorcerer.
Yes. A grand ritual. That would be the first thing he’d do if only the statues’ guns would stop firing.
Daan of War 